Kidd recorded his 40th career triple-double with 16 points, 10
rebounds and 12 assists. He nailed a 3-pointer with nine
seconds remaining to pull New Jersey within 96-95.

But Stojakovic made two free throws at the other end. Kidd had
a chance for a tying 3-pointer, which would have been his third
overtime-forcing shot in the first four games of this five-game
road trip. But with Bobby Jackson in his face, Kidd's shot was
way off. Keith Van Horn tipped in the rebound at the buzzer.

"They're not going to give you a wide-open look," Kidd said.
"You have got to be creative and I thought I'd try to get
(Jackson) off his feet, but he didn't go for it. So I thought
the next best thing was to try to get it up there. It was on
line, just a little strong."

"When you're down by three, you just got to take whatever you
can," New Jersey coach Byron Scott said. "Jason just hit one so
I think Bobby was going to make sure he didn't give him any
room. The only thing you could do at that particular point is
probably try to drive and kick it out to somebody else. But I'll
live with Jason taking those shots with the game on the line.
More times than not, he's been able to hit them."

Jackson, who had 13 points and six rebounds, took personal pride
in covering Kidd late in the game.

"Everybody has to step up and make key defensive plays," he
said. "We traded baskets for a little bit in the second half.
They were scoring at will and so it's my job to come in there
and be a leader, play defense, score and do whatever I can do to
help this team win games.

"He's a point guard so I just try to make it tough on him. He's
such a threat offensively and defensively, so you just got to
keep your head up when you're playing against that guy."

Mike Bibby contributed 16 points for Sacramento, which improved
to 7-0 at Arco Arena. The Kings had won their first six home
games by an average of 21.7 points.

"It was exciting," Bibby said. "We could have put it away a long
time ago, but that's why we play the game. They kept fighting.
It's not over until the buzzer goes off. We were lucky we
pulled it off."

Kenyon Martin scored 20 points and Van Horn contributed 19 and
10 rebounds for the Nets, who fell to 2-2 on their trip.

"We never quit," Scott said. "We continued to play hard. I
thought the first half, we just didn't come out with the same
intensity that we did in the second half. In the second half,
we did a very good job on both ends of the court. The positive
thing is that we competed. For 48 minutes we pretty much played
a pretty good basketball team. We fought them tooth and nail all
the way to the end."

Sacramento began the fourth quarter with a 17-6 run, taking a
92-78 lead with six minutes remaining on two free throws by
Stojakovic.

New Jersey responded with an 11-0 run, moving to 92-89 as Kidd
made a driving layup with 2:39 left. Divac hit a jumper 20
seconds later but missed 2-of-4 three throws before Kidd hit one
from beyond the arc with nine seconds left.

"People have been talking about how they wanted an exciting game
here, so we did that in the fourth quarter," said Sacramento
coach Rick Adelman, who moved seven wins away from 500 for his
career. "I thought we had them put away when we had that
14-point lead. I give them credit, they came back and they made
a lot of shots. Fortunately, we made enough plays to win the
game."

The Kings used a 19-7 run to take a 24-12 lead with 3:12 left in
the first quarter. Stojakovic scored 10 points in the opening
period.

In the second quarter, New Jersey closed to 33-30 on Derrick
Dial's three-point play with 9:22 left. But Sacramento regained
its double-digit lead with a 14-6 run, capped by consecutive
driving layups by Jackson that opened a 47-36 advantage with
5:15 to go.

"We let them get out to an early start," Kidd said. "Anytime
you're on the road, you want to give yourself a chance to win
the ball game. But the guys stayed with it and we kept
fighting, and we just came up a little short tonight."

Martin scored 10 points in the third period, when New Jersey
used a 14-5 run over the second half of the quarter to close to
73-72 with 1:23 remaining.

Doug Christie contributed 10 points and five assists for the
Kings, who shot 41 percent (36-for-87) from the field and
converted 24-of-37 free throws.

Kerry Kittles had 14 points and seven rebounds and Aaron
Williams collected 10 and five as New Jersey shot 44 percent and
owned a 50-45 edge in rebounding, but was awarded only 16 free
throws.

"Thirty-seven free throws to our 16, that's the bottom line,"
Scott said. "We didn't get a lot of calls, obviously, and they
got a lot of calls. I guess that's just part of basketball."